Meeting: CISM MIC WG 
Date: Monday,  February 2, 2004  (TODAY) 
Time: 3:30pm EST
Place: Access Grid - CISM (Dartmouth College) Room 
 
Back to our monthly routine.  Email me your slides, if you have any to show.
 
AGENDA
 
With reports on first milestones now in, we might spend time at this meeting discussing ideas and plans for next steps on
 
1) LFM-TING coupling (Wang, Wiltberger)
2) RCM-LFM coupling  (Lyon, Toffoletto)  
3) MIC coupling validation  (everyone; Spence cannot  attend) 
4) MIC physics issues (Lotko, everyone )
5) Other items? 
 
Wenbin has asked me to address some questions on MI coupling at small scales, especially feedback instability. He poses the following (good) questions, not all of which I can answer (help from others appreciated):
 
a) Have any processes been proposed other than feedback instability to explain the observations of Newell et al.?
b) How can we parameterize small-scale (~10 km) feedback processes proposed by Newell et al to explain electron energy flux enhancements in winter/dark hemisphere?
c) If the high ionospheric conductance in the summer hemisphere short circuits the field-aligned currents, what does the global magnetospheric electric field or current look like? 
d)  How does it sustain the required high voltage for feedback instability to occur in the winter hemisphere? 
 
 
WG URL: http://thayer.dartmouth.edu/spacescience/wl/cism-mi-wg/ 
 
_______________________________
 
The 1/12/04 WG meeting was cancelled.
 
Notes from the 12/1/03 WG meeting:
 
Participants from BU, Dartmouth, NCAR, Rice and SWRI
 
1)  LFM - TING Coupling (Wang, Wiltberger) - Preliminary studies show that the cross polar cap potential is very similar w/ and w/o coupling. Precipitation into summer hemisphere < precipitation into winter hemisphere except shortly after startup which may be a numerical initialization effect (more investigation needed). Patterns derived from coupled and uncoupled models are more or less similar for the low-resolution runs considered thus far (TING 5° x 5° , LFM 400km x 400 km)
 
2)  LFM - RCM Coupling (Lyon, Toffoletto) - One way coupling exhibits 3-5% magnetic flux errors observed due primarily to method of mapping and calculating flux rather than actual nonconservation of div B = 0. Spence asked if results are ready for observational comparison. Answer: until 2-way coupling is in place (Toffoletto). Clarification: Outer magnetospheric BC on RCM is provided by LFM; Maxwellian distributions assumed based on LFM fluid variables; the distributions become non-Maxwellian as they drift inward.
 
3) Validation (mostly Spence) - Obtain hemispheric power estimates from different satellites. NCAR to get DMSP data in CEDAR database for climatological studies; NCAR is paying for labor to extract DMSP data; may be useful for CISM validation (B Emery is the contact). Validation webpages will be set up at BU (Spence).
 
4) Plans to submit a NSF/MRI proposal from BU for a dedicated CISM computer (SGI Altrix) for coupling, forecast simulation, validation studies did not materialize because the proposal was not selected by BU provost as one of two allowed proposals from BU.